Polyamide, silk, and wool fibers are subject to soiling and staining. Many of the currently used soil resist agents for nylon carpets are based on polymers derived from perfluoroalkylethyl alcohols. While these fluorochemical soil resist agents are effective in protecting the fiber from soil, they offer little protection from stains caused by acid dyes. Sulfonated aromatic condensates provide stain resistance and durability towards washing or shampooing of polyamide and wool fibers to acid dyes, but they have a tendency to turn yellow over time and accelerate soiling. These stain resists are usually applied from aqueous medium. Often surfactants are used to help disperse or dissolve the stain resist agents at low pH. Co-application of the distinct stain resists and soil resists can pose problems, such as incompatibilities and deficiencies in performance. Because of this incompatibility of soil and stain resists at low pH values in solution, their co-application is not usually viable.
While the performances of stain resistant compositions have been improved, none of the commercial stain resists offer acceptable protection from soiling. Thus improvement in soiling still requires treatment with fluorochemical-based compounds in a separate step.
While both stain and soil resistance have been claimed for single compositions, these typically have not provided the level of stain and soil resistance desired. None provide a superior soil and stain resist performance. May, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,408,010, discloses the reaction of terminally unsaturated alkenylamines or alkenyl alcohols (e.g., allyl amine or alcohol) with maleic anhydride copolymers, and reacting the resulting polymeric amides or esters with 1-iodoperfluoroalkanes. Dehydroiodination of the resulting product provided a polymer in which the perfluoroalkyl groups were linked to the amide through an unsaturated alkenyl group. May does not teach a stain resist property.
It is desirable to provide a single composition that provides superior stain and soil resistance in a single step application process. The present invention provides such a composition and a process for its application.